The Camp-Fire 17 



Nature is a munificent mistress, but she is a 

 sulky slave. We may grow plants under glass, but 

 their flowers are without perfume and their fruit 

 without flavor. We may bring in the roots of the 

 cranberry and strawberry, and be sure from the 

 growth in form and color that we have effected a 

 capture, only to find that the exquisite tang, the 

 spirit of the fruit, has fled back to the woods. We 

 do not know whether nature weeps or laughs at our 

 blackberries and raspberries, backed stiffly up 

 against the garden fence, and fettered with pieces 

 of lath; but seek out those of her own growing, in 

 some secluded nook, the hooked vines bending with 

 ebon or ruddy clusters, hidden away under canopies 

 of dewy leaves, while a saucy bird scolds at you 

 from a twig above. 



We have domesticated the duck, but we have 

 failed to domesticate its beautiful plumage and its 

 matchless flavor. The speckled beauty which cuts 

 the foam of the cascade with your line is nature's; 

 hers the bass which makes it sing like a harp; hers 

 the muskallonge which puts such an ache in your 

 fingers, as you handle the reel, that you think you 

 can stand it no longer. Compare a quarter of beef, 

 hung at the door of a marketman's shop, with the 

 sudden apparition of a crowned stag, in his new 

 uniform of blue, upon the shore of a lonely lake; or 

 a roast of pork in a basket to a bear shambling 

 along a hillside. Nature's birds of plumage and song 

 are not for your prison. The poor canary does his 



